Seasonal variation in host susceptibility and cycles of certain infectious diseases.

By S. Dowell. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2001

645 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Seasonal cycles of infectious diseases have been variously attributed to changes in atmospheric conditions, the prevalence or virulence of the pathogen, or the behavior of the host. Some observations about seasonality are difficult to reconcile with these explanations. These include the simultaneous appearance of outbreaks across widespread geographic regions of the same latitude; the detection of pathogens in the off-season without epidemic spread; and the consistency of seasonal changes, despite wide variations in weather and human behavior. In contrast, an increase in susceptibility of the host population, perhaps linked to the annual light/dark cycle and mediated by the pattern of melatonin secretion, might account for many heretofore unexplained features of infectious disease seasonality. Ample evidence indicates that photoperiod-driven physiologic changes are typical in mammalian species, including some in humans. If such physiologic changes underlie human resistance to infectious diseases for large portions of the year and the changes can be identified and modified, the therapeutic and preventive implications may be considerable.

Subfields: Genetics, Modeling and Simulation, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5d3dfcf121cd71ba984831f2b8c6d988a1956b47

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In Genetics

1. Dana M. Hawley
2. A. Dobson
3. P. Hudson
4. S. Altizer
5. K. Lafferty
6. Pieter T. J. Johnson

In Modeling and Simulation

1. Dana M. Hawley
2. Mercedes Pascual
3. P. Palese
4. S. Altizer
5. J. Tang
6. Jeffrey Shaman
7. Raymond Tellier
8. M. Kohn

In Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

1. Dana M. Hawley
2. Mercedes Pascual
3. S. Altizer

Citations in the corpus

• Seasonality of Respiratory Viral Infections. (2020, background): “Seasonal oscillation of the daylight period modulates the physiological activity of mammalian species through daily melatonin pulse (9).”
• Seasonal dynamics of mycoplasmal conjunctivitis in eastern North American house finches (2004, background): “Finally, annual environmental changes in temperature, rainfall and winds have been linked directly to pathogen transmission and survival in other systems (Dowell 2001; Harvell et al .”
• Seasonality and the dynamics of infectious diseases. (2006, background): “Seasonal changes in host susceptibility and immune defence Hosts often exhibit yearly rhythms that influence immune function (Dowell 2001; Nelson et al. 2002; Fig.”
• Influenza Virus Transmission Is Dependent on Relative Humidity and Temperature (2007, background): “Current hypotheses include fluctuations in host immune competence mediated by seasonal factors such as melatonin [5] and vitamin D [6] levels; seasonal changes in host behavior, such as school attendance, air travel [7], and indoor crowding during cold or rainy weather; and environmental factors, in”
• Disease ecology meets ecological immunology: understanding the links between organismal immunity and infection dynamics in natural populations (2011, background): “More generally, there is growing awareness that hosts can exhibit intra-annual rhythms in immune function (reviewed in Dowell 2001; Nelson & Demas 1996; Nelson et al. 2002), which could drive changes in infection and recovery following host exposure.”